Armor
by Chorus to this History
Summary: The war against the Darkness can be horrifying. It will break you if you let it get to you, and it will try to get to you. Not everyone has an indomitable spirit or a heart of gold. Some of us just have Armor. Smut, drama, and action: something for everyone! Titan x Hunter, and later Titan x Queen
1. Whiskey in the Water

**WHISKEY IN THE WATER**

They were twenty minutes from Venus when the Titan walked in on the Hunter.

It was a routine mission as far as the Fireteam was concerned - though routine hardly meant safe in their line of work - so even this close to the drop, each was alone in their quarters.

Except the Titan.

The Titan who so disliked cramped spaces and low ceilings. The Titan who always seemed stooped in their little jump ship. The Titan who, after the drop, would crack her neck and stand tall again, surveying whatever warzone they were in like she was its queen.

Instead, the Titan was alone in the mess room, sitting with her elbows on the table and idly stirring a bowl of cooling rations the Warlock had tried to "spice up". The vents sighed, the engines hummed, that one light flickered again overhead, and the Titan was _bored_.

Bored and already geared up. She pushed away the bowl and rose to her feet, a hulking tank out of place in a tea shop, helmet brushing the ceiling.

Her head swiveled smoothly as she scanned the room, looking for something to do, some task that needed to be accomplished before they made the drop.

She loathed boredom.

So when nothing was forthcoming, she silently left the room to find the Hunter, her giant tread threatening to buckle the deck beneath her and send her on a spacewalk.

She had to duck her head to get through the door that led to their quarters, coming out into a little white hallway with doors on either side. She went down to the last one on her right, opened it, and walked in.

The Titan found herself in a dark room, the only light a rectangle on the floor spilling from the door. There was a humidity and thickness to the darkness, like the night after a bonfire, like smoke. Boots and weapons in various stages of disassembly sat in the rectangle of light, cast about like toys. At the far end of the room, where the light couldn't quite penetrate, was the Hunter.

The Hunter was on her bed, back curled against the wall, her legs splayed wide and her hand working between them. Fingers flexing, wrist rocking wave-like back and forth. She was pale in the black at the end of the room.

The Titan stopped in the doorway. The Hunter opened her eyes halfway and looked out from the darkness. Her bomber jacket was unzipped, slight breasts poking out, pipe-clay ribs. She didn't stop moving her hand.

"What are you doing?", the Titan asked. It wasn't the first time she'd seen those breasts, those ribs, that taut expanse of belly.

The Hunter smiled through a sheen of sweat. "You know".

The Titan didn't answer, just shook her head and stepped into the room. The darkness retreated around her as she looked impassively out over the room from behind her helmet.

It felt strange, her huge and crab-like in her armor, the Hunter half-naked on the bed. Felt like two different realities jammed into the same little box.

"Why are you doing this?".

The Hunter shut her eyes again, snaking her hand up to her stomach, rubbing slow circles there with her fingers. "Don't be obtuse". A pause as her fingers freeze. "It's stressful. The missions and everything, I mean. I don't want to go into a fight all...". Her fingers resumed.

"All what?". Then, "Do you have doubts about the mission?".

She laughed, a single brilliant note of cruelty and mirth. "No. No, of course not". She drew her hand back down, furrowing her brow as her fingers found purchase and she pinched. "I just don't want to go in all pent up".

The Titan nodded once, stoic.

The Hunter stuck two fingers between her legs and flexed them, screwing her eyes tighter shut and grimacing. Through what looked like pain, "You know what I get like. All wired and jumpy".

Then, "Can't have that".

A nod again. The Titan stood there for a while, looking over the room like some alabaster hawk as the Hunter's fingers dipped in and out, faster and faster, her face contorted.

At the height of it all, she asked, "Can I sit down?".

The Hunter's shoulders tightened up toward her ears, muscles bulging, her chest swelling with breath as if she would scream. "Course".

The Titan thudded down onto the end of the bed, slouching over in her armor, threatening to crush the fragile thing beneath her bulk. She held her wrist in one hand, turning the pressure seal until it clicked off and then tossing away the glove.

The Hunter slowed down, shoulders relaxing, eyes shut and head lowered. She breathed steam into the humid dark.

With her bare hand, the Titan reached down to her waist and undid the pressure seals there too, one by one, working with slow and practiced ease. She stripped the ivory plates and set them in a stack on the floor. Underneath was something black and skin-tight, clinging to the smooth lines of her thighs, her calves.

From somewhere unseen she drew a silver flask, engraved with twisting vines. Gaze hidden behind her helmet, still staring straight ahead at the light from the open door, she held it out to the Hunter. The other woman took it.

Then the Titan hooked her thumbs under her waistband and pulled her pants down to her thighs. The Hunter had unscrewed the flask by now and was holding it to her lips, head back, throat bobbing. When she surfaced for air and passed it back to the Titan, the woman did not drink.

She held it in her pale palm, tipping it back and forth, weighing it. Whiskey sloshed inside. It was still half full.

She turned her head, looking for the first time at the Hunter's face.

"Drink"


	2. Death Upon the Vine

**DEATH UPON THE VINE**

It only took the Vex five minutes to kill their first Guardian.

The Titan was sitting out the storm in the drop bay, rifle propped between her knees. The cramped compartment was hellish hot, the air a thin wash of burnt ozone.

The jumpship was being buffeted tremendously by the crushing Venus winds, fighting tooth and nail to claw its way down through sulphurous clouds. The hull was shuddering, and at one point the bottom seemed to drop out of the world as they fell, before the Fireteam was slammed back up against the bulkheads. The Hunter cracked her head and swore bitterly, hunching forward in her seat and pawing at the wound.

The Titan stared at the woman. She didn't feel like her stress had been relieved, not really, especially considering how they'd ended that conversation. She just felt tired.

But then again, this life was killing her, and even death was getting boring.

For interminable gut-wrenching seconds the shudder through the ship's spine intensified, as a hundred blows pummeled every square inch of its hull. The Hunter went rigid, gripping her gun with white knuckles and pressing herself against the bulkhead. The Warlock held still as an owl, head cocked, unperturbed.

Then all at once it stopped, a pleasant feeling of lightness settling over the Guardians. The Titan almost enjoyed it for a second.

They were on their feet and running before the door hissed open and spat them out into the poison-green slickness of a Venusian jungle, rifles tracking left and right as they cleared their sight lines through billowing white fog.

Across the clearing another jumpship was setting down. A seam resolved on its underside, gushing blue-white steam that was torn away by the hot wind as the door slid open.

As the other team unloaded, the Titan took the time to stand as tall as she could and crack her neck, left, then right.

 _That_ was stress relief.

They were five klicks from their target, a Vex outpost of some kind. They'd have to hoof it this last leg, couldn't risk bringing the ships in under enemy fire. It was a breach-and-clear, a standard operation with nothing more to do than mop up Vex.

"Clear left", came the Hunter's voice.

"Clear right", the Warlock.

"Clear ahead. Wait for the other team to call the clear then-".

But it wasn't. As soon as the Guardians across the clearing had disembarked, a vicious hail of red light hammered into them from the treeline. Their formation split as everyone ran for cover.

The Hunter was swearing and hissing over the comms, the Titan dead silent as she ran for the trees. The fire wasn't letting up, an endless barrage of crimson bolts scything through the fleeing Guardians. Trees were scorched, mud burnt to glass, whole canopies ignited by the gunfire.

The Titan crashed through flaming trees and vaulted a rock. She landed in the mud behind it, slammed herself up against it for cover, and risked a look back at the fight.

A lone Guardian, not one of hers, had been caught out in the clear. As she ran, the woman was struck in the back, a bloodred bolt of light leaping through her stomach.

She wheeled furiously, roaring as she brought her gun to bear. She unloaded her weapon from the hip, walking a blistering line of fire across the Vex position, tattered cloak whipping around her in the wind.

Their response was another barrage, crimson lights flitting all around the raging woman as she continued to sweep the trees with lead. Half a dozen struck her as she fought, self-cauterizing the wounds they opened.

She dropped her gun and swayed for a moment, before another bolt tore through her leg and she was forced to kneel. She coughed, ragged and wet, as blood spilled from her helmet.

Then a final shot rang rang out, striking her on the head and sending her to the ground.

There was withering silence. Shreds of white fog swirled around the clearing, brushing the scorched-up trees. Tiny flames licked up from pools of fire and glassed earth.

Finally, a little white shape appeared above the wounded Guardian. It set to work on her, flitting back and forth, stitching her back together with Light.

Another crimson flash and it was hit. The Ghost disappeared in a flurry of sparks, leaving an after-image scorched onto the air.

The Titan chinned her comms in the silence. "See if we can medivac her". If she's still alive. "Use the jumpships for cover. Watch that treeline".

She snapped to her feet and whipped around the rock, sighting downrange. Clear. She shouldered the rifle, starting to run back toward the clearing. Already the survivors of the other team were engaging the Vex, the crashing report of gunfire filling the jungle.

Clearing the trees, she bolted to the nearest jumpship, squeezing herself tight against it. The fallen Guardian was between the two ships, splayed out like a ragdoll on the killing ground.

And still breathing.

"She's alive".

There was a crackle of static, before the Hunter's voice cut in. " _I see her. I'm back in the trees, I'll cover you if you wanna make a run for it. Poor thing, lost her fucking Ghost-_ ".

The Titan chinned the link, changing the frequency to the Warlock. "Go keep the Vex busy".

There was a reply, something anecdotal and lengthy where _yes_ would have sufficed. She filtered it out.

The Titan slung the rifle over her shoulder, dropped into a runner's crouch and kicked her leg back. Muscles bulged and she launched off her back foot, cratering the earth as she sprang into the open.

Red light lanced all around her, falling just at her heels. She grabbed the downed Guardian by the neck and kept running, jerking the woman through the mud behind her.

The Titan skidded to a halt behind the next jumpship, driving divots into the dirt with her boots. The Guardian at her heels, facedown, planted her hands and tried to push herself up. She shook weakly as little crimson drops fell from her helmet.

The Titan leaned down and popped the pressure seal, tearing the helmet off. The thing that looked up at her was hardly a Guardian.

Red froth flowed from her mouth, one eye horribly distended and bulging, the other hidden in shadow, her lips on one side jerked up in a stroke victim's grimace. A section of her head was caved in, the wound self-cauterized. Probably the only reason she was still breathing.

That bulging bloodshot eye looked up into the Titan's faceplate. The lips moved.

"Nnn...nnng...g...ghossss...nnwh".

The comlink crackled. " _Have you got her_?".

The Guardian at her feet crept forward an inch, reached out with a spasming hand to...what? Claw at her? Use the Titan for support, for balance?

For comfort?

"Nnngwhosssss...ghossss...nnwhe?".

The Titan unslung her rifle, snapping off the strap that held it. She levelled it at the creeping, shuddering thing on the ground. Sighted up on its deformed skull.

" _Is she breathing_?".

The Titan pulled the trigger.


	3. Law of the Jungle

**LAW OF THE JUNGLE**

The Titan had been tracking the Renegade for days now. He was a rare breed, a Guardian-killer, a man who had turned from the Light and betrayed his people to the Darkness.

Such people had to be stopped.

She'd followed the rogue Guardian's trail for much longer than that, though: this was just the final leg of a months-long hunt across the Earth.

Months of chasing rumors and ghosts, trying to pick up a signal, a trail, a ship, some sign that her quarry was even on the planet. Months of detour and diversion as she paused her long hunt to fight the City's enemies, trying to beat back the Darkness, spitting into the tidal wave. _Months_ of nothing, of waiting, hoping, _praying_ that something would shift and the winds of fate would blow another lead her way and turn her back to the trail of the Renegade she sought.

Months of frustration and failure.

But now she was here, overlooking a narrow valley covered all in rainforest through which a river ran slick and black, not far from the ruins of a city called Caracas.

This valley held her quarry.

And she was not alone.

This was before her Fireteam, before the Hunter was her sister-in-arms and sometimes more, before the Warlock became something between her mascot and her mentor.

This was before her Fireteam.

This was the time of the Titan and her Huntress.

* * *

The two Guardians stood overlooking the rich jungle that spread below them, hemmed on all sides by crumbling chalky cliffs. All sides but theirs, anyways. The only way in or out of the blind valley was where they were standing.

The Renegade was boxed in.

"I knew it", the Titan started. "I fucking knew it, knew one day he'd make a mistake so big he couldn't unfuck himself". She was moving as she spoke, shouldering her rifle, sliding a magazine into place, chambering a round, all with a kind of hyper-animated and ritualistic manner that spoke to her aching anticipation of this moment.

If not for the Titan's helmet, the Huntress would have seen her drooling.

Instead, she placed a gentle hand on the Titan's shoulder, suspending for the time her violent trance and holding her in an ancillary state.

"Calm". The word itself was soft, but the voice that spoke it was backed by numbing power. It moved from the Huntress' mouth like a breeze, gathering force and speed as it sped into the Titan's mind a gale and struck her there.

At once the Titan relaxed, realizing only then that her shoulders had tensed tremendously, her knees locked, her hands frozen around her rifle as surely as lockjaw. She exhaled, bowed her head slightly in recognition of what her opposite had said.

"Yeah. Right, right, I will. I am".

She turned on the woman, rifle still gripped though lightly, easily now.

"It's just been so damn long. So...so fucking _long_ waiting for him to slip up".

The sun was setting ahead of them, sliding slowly down into the blind valley below them. The ancient trees waited silently, shadows gathering and pulling tight around the vines that hung like stringy beards from their branches. The creepers that girdled the cliffs seemed to recede. The scene was washed with coral pink, painting the Titan's ivory armor in cool blush. She was distant, still.

The Huntress said nothing, knowing that only silence would coax the rest of the Titan's thought out into the open.

The moment held as they looked into eachother, the Titan turned perpendicular to the valley below as she faced her Huntress.

"Why did he have to mess up?". The words, to the Huntress' surprise, were _pained_. Soft and low, their edges worn and jagged.

"Why couldn't it be me that found him? I wanted to find him, but instead he has to make a mistake and that's the only reason he's caught. But I guess that's good. Because I was never going to find him, was I?".

The Titan began to tense again, her great shape twisting and hunching, drawing in on itself. The words flowed from her now, beyond control.

"No, I wasn't. I wasn't going to find him on my own, it had to be him. Or you. Anyone but me. He's letting me find him. He doesn't even know it, he isn't trying to, but it's only because he fucked up that I found him. Not even that. I didn't find him".

Then, almost silently, these last words just a breath that she didn't know if the Huntress heard: "It's like it's his story, and I'm just a result of his mistake".

The Huntress waited, letting the sun dip further into the black river winding so far below them.

"You know what I think?", the Huntress said, not really a question, as she stepped in toward the great tensed hulk of the Titan.

The Titan could muster no reply, so she snaked a hand around the Titan's armored waist and pulled them flush together. What a ridiculous picture they made, the Titan a head taller than the Huntress and large enough to envelop her, yet the Huntress so obviously in control. The Titan so obviously a child, a forlorn lover.

"I think maybe we should forget this. Just forget it, forget everything about the Renegade. We've been through a lot getting here, you more than me, and I think...".

She paused. How to say this without hurting the Titan?

"We can just walk away. You know that. This guy...someone else can deal with him. It doesn't have to be us".

They were leaned together, so close that neither could look into the other's eyes. The Huntress pulled back, still holding the Titan at arm's length, looking up into her face now.

"I don't want to see you hurt". The words, sharp and clear as lightning in a blue morning sky.

There was a horrible moment where the Titan was still, her face invisible and unreadable behind her helmet, and the Huntress thought the woman might turn from her.

But then the moment had passed and the Titan leaned down into her, dropping the rifle in the mud and embracing the Huntress. She buried her massive armored head in the smaller woman's neck, breath hitching and uneven.

It seemed like she would cry.

She didn't, of course. The Huntress almost laughed at the thought: it would have been so out of character, so impossible to reconcile with her image of the woman, that she would have refused to believe it had it happened.

Instead the Titan pulled back and rose to her full height, bending momentarily to heft the rifle back into her grip. The sun had all but set and the sky was awash in deep blue, stars poking through piecemeal and white.

The Huntress held back as the Titan shouldered her weapon and began to stride down into the valley. She felt a hesitance she felt with no other she had met, something hard to articulate, as her Titan walked away into the dark.

"Wait", she said, darting down the Titan's side.

"The sun's down, we should go back. We don't want to fight him in the dark. And if he slips past...Maybe we should wait until morning. He's not going anywhere".

Then, with another hand now on the Titan's hip, a new texture slid into her voice. "It's cold anyways. We can go back to the ship. Keep eachother warm".

There was an almost desperation in her voice. The Titan kept her gaze fixed ahead, trying not to succumb to the desire that burned in her at those words, spoken by that voice. A snake of lust coiled hot in her gut.

Sometimes the Huntress was hard to resist.

"No", the Titan said bluntly, not this time. "I don't care about fighting him in the dark. I care about fighting him now". The words were forced, some of the violence in them had been lost. She wanted so badly to give in, to go with the Huntress to their ship and start a fire together.

But that could wait, another time, another place.

This was what the Titan had come here for, and this was what she'd do.

"Alright", the Huntress said. She squared herself, facing the benighted valley ahead of them, and cracked her neck. Left, then right.

"Let's fight in the dark".

* * *

 **Hello reader mine! I just want to thank whoever you are for continuing to read, support and hopefully enjoy this story. I want to encourage you, if you really enjoy it, to favorite, follow, or review! If you have something to say to me, positive or negative as it may be, feel free to PM me here at my FanFiction account or to post a review.**

 **I also want to thank my wonderful co-writer and editor in this endeavor, Game-Fanboy! He's been an immense help in the process so far, and I think he will continue to be.**

 **Thanks for reading! More to come soon!**


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